System and method for revising flow diagrams displaying a process

ABSTRACT

Embodiments of the present invention implement a method and system that revise a flow diagram of a selected process of a plurality of processes. The plurality of processes are displayed in a first portion of a screen, and the flow diagram of the selected process is displayed in a second portion of the screen. A user selection of portions of the process flow to be revised is received and the selected portions of the process flow in the second portion of the screen are revised.

COPYRIGHT NOTICE

A portion of the disclosure of this patent document contains materialthat is subject to copyright protection. The copyright owner has noobjection to the facsimile reproduction by anyone of the patent documentor patent disclosure as it appears in the Patent and Trademark Officepatent file or records, but otherwise reserves all copyright rightswhatsoever.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

In today's complex software environment, information may be representedin a myriad of different formats, each of which define a particulararrangement of data that can be processed and/or stored by a computer.In some computing environments, it is desirable to represent informationin a process or flow. Any particular computing process can berepresented in a flow diagram for easier visual comprehension of theflow of the particular process. For example, a login process could berepresented in a flow diagram such that the various steps of the processare easy to visualize.

Such processes are often configured within software in a computer inparticular types of files. For example, the process may be configuredwithin a series of configuration files. The files may also be configuredin other types of files, such as application files, or in a combinationof different types of files, such as in a combination of configurationand application files.

These types of files defining the flow of a particular process are oftennumerous, and can be difficult to work with, particularly for a user whois not an expert with such computer processes. Working with the flow ofsuch a process can be very difficult when all one has to work with issuch configuration and application files. Further, modifying such filescan also be difficult, particularly for the non-expert user. Where suchprocesses are complicated and difficult to visualize, it can bedifficult for a user to simplify such displayed processes.

Accordingly, there is a need in the art for an improved system andmethod for taking such process files and automatically displaying suchfiles in a flow diagram format that is easy to visualize and use. Thereis a further need for allowing a user to easily revise a displayed flowof such a process.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 is a flowchart illustrating a process in accordance with anembodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a flowchart illustrating a process in accordance with anembodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a screenshot of a flow diagram in accordance with anembodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 4 is a screenshot in accordance with an embodiment of the presentinvention.

FIG. 5 is a block diagram that depicts a user computing device inaccordance with an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 6 is a block diagram that depicts a network architecture inaccordance with an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 7 is a flowchart illustrating a process in accordance with anembodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 8 is a screenshot in accordance with an embodiment of the presentinvention.

FIG. 9 is a screenshot in accordance with an embodiment of the presentinvention.

FIG. 10 is a screenshot in accordance with an embodiment of the presentinvention.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

Embodiments of the present invention implement a method and system thatrevise a flow diagram of a selected process of a plurality of processes.The plurality of processes are displayed in a first portion of a screen,and the flow diagram of the selected process is displayed in a secondportion of the screen. A user selection of portions of the process flowto be revised is received and the selected portions of the process flowin the second portion of the screen are revised.

FIG. 1 depicts a process in accordance with an embodiment of the presentinvention. In step 100, an indication of a location of the configurationfiles and the application files is received. As further explained below,this indication may be input by a user that wants to automaticallygenerate a flow diagram of the process flow between configuration filesand application files for a process that has been predefined.

In step 110, flow information is extracted from the configuration filesand from the application files. Details of the extraction of the flowinformation from the configuration files and application files arefurther discussed below. The flow information is information containedin the configuration files and in the application files that indicatesone or more destination nodes from the configuration or application fileand/or a flow label. The flow information may include flow labels and/orflow destinations.

In step 120, the flow diagram displaying a process flow between theconfiguration files and the application files is then generated from theflow information. The generated flow diagram and the method used togenerate it are further explained below in conjunction with FIGS. 2 and3.

FIG. 2 illustrates a process in accordance with an embodiment of thepresent invention. In step 200, a process is identified by receipt ofthe indication of the location of the file or by other means. Eachprocess may have one or a plurality of configuration or applicationfiles associated with it. For each file x, the present invention mayprocess the files to determine flow destinations and/or flow labels.

In step 210, a first file in the process is identified. The flowdestination for the file is determined in step 220, and the flow label(if any) is determined in step 230, as further described below. In 240,the flow destination may be used to identify additional files, and steps220 and 230 of determining the additional flow destinations and/or flowlabels will continue until all destinations and labels in the processare determined.

When all of the flow destinations and/or flow labels are determined, thefiles may be displayed along with the corresponding flow destinations instep 250. In step 260, the connections between the files may bedisplayed based on the determined flow destinations. In step 270, theconnections may be labeled according to the flow labels. These steps arefurther illustrated below

FIG. 3 illustrates a flow diagram 300 that has been generated inaccordance with an embodiment of the present invention. The flow diagram300 has been generated in accordance with a predefined login processthat includes application files and configuration files. The flowdiagram 300 that is illustrated in FIG. 3 is a flow of a login process310. The flow diagram 300 illustrates configuration files, applicationfiles, and the flow of the process between them. In the flow diagram300, spanner wrench icons are used to represent configuration files anddocument icons are used to represent application files, although anytype of icon may be used. A configuration file is represented in theflow diagram by the spanner wrench 320 labeled “/b2b/preparelogin.do”.This icon could correspond to the following configuration entries inconfig.xml:

<action path=“/b2b/preparelogin”type=“com.sapmarkets.isa.isacore.action.b2b.PrepareLoginAction”><forward name=“success” path=“/b2b/login.do”/> <forward name=“umelogin”path=“/b2b/login/empty.jsp”/> <forward name=“failure”path=“/b2b/login/login.jsp”/> </action>

Flow labels and flow destinations are information that may be extractedfrom the configuration file for use in generating the flow diagram inaccordance with embodiments of the present invention. In the particularexample shown above, three labels, “success”, “failure” and “umelogin”are extracted from the configuration file. Also, three correspondingflow destinations are extracted, namely “/b2b/login.do”,“/b2b/login/empty.jsp” and “/b2b/login/login.jsp”. The flow label 340illustrated in FIG. 2 is labeled “failure”. The flow destination 330 islabeled “/b2b/login/login.jsp”. The flow labels and flow destinationsare useful for a user in visualizing the flow of the process.

The flow destination 330 “/b2b/login/login.jsp” is an application file,which in this case is a .jsp file. Other types of application filescould also be used, such as HTML (Hyper-Text Markup Language) files. Theapplication files also have flow information extracted from them asdescribed above. The “/b2b/login/login.jsp” application file mayinclude:

<form method=“POST” action=‘<isa:webappsURL name=“b2b/login.do”/>’name=“login_form” onSubmit=“return checkFields( )”>

This application file is tokenized to extract the flow destination. Thisis accomplished by breaking the .jsp file from a long character streaminto small parts (tokens), from which the flow destination and any flowlabels may be extracted. For example, this may be accomplished bybreaking the web page file from a long character stream into a series ofsmall meaningful parts (tokens), so it is easy to operate on. In theexample, the following line from a application file may be broken into aseries of tokens:<form action=‘<isa:webappsURL name=“b2b/login.do”/>’ name=“loginForm”>may be broken into [“form”, “action”, “isa:webappsURL”, “name”,“b2b/login.do”, “name”, “loginForm”]. This may be done by using Java's(or some other language's) string operation library. Then the flowdestinations can be extracted from those tokens. To achieve this, acoding standard may be used, such as SAP Internet Sales application'sweb page source file, where all the links are encapsulated by a specifictag (a common approach among business level internet applications).Other coding standards could also be used. The tokens are searched forthat correspond to that specific tag, for example, the “isa:webappsURL”token, and then the following token is extracted as the flowdestination. In this case, the flow destination “b2b/login.do” isextracted for use in creating the flow diagram. This particulardestination does not include a label, but in examples where a label isused, the label is also extracted.

The flow information may be extracted from the configuration files byknown techniques. For example, a standard XML package may be used forextraction, such as DOM (Document Object Model) or SAX (Simple API forXML) which are widely available and known. These XML packages may beused to parse the flow information from the files.

The present invention may use any number of application files andconfiguration files to generate a flow diagram, depending upon thecomplexity of the process. The application files may be of various typesother than the .jsp files illustrated herein. The present invention maybe used with a system having stored therein a large number of suchprocesses that each can be used to generate such a flow diagram inaccordance with the embodiment. For example, in addition to the “login”process 310 illustrated in FIG. 1, other processes are illustrated suchas “billing”, “businesspartner”, etc. Each of these processes could beused to generate a flow diagram in accordance with embodiment of theinvention.

Embodiments of the invention may be used with a plurality of processes,to generate a plurality of flow diagrams. The plurality of processes maybe related, and even grouped together, such as, for example, in a commongroup or project.

FIG. 4 illustrates a screen shot 400 that may be used in accordance withthe present invention. The screen shot 400 includes a project name 410,an application file location 420 and a configuration file location 430.The screen shot 400 is generated to prompt a user to enter the locationof application files and configuration files that the present inventionwill use to extract the flow information used to generate the flowdiagram or diagrams. Alternatively, the screenshot 400 could be used toonly require entry of the project name, and the location of theconfiguration files and application files could automatically begenerated.

Embodiments of the present invention extract the flow destinations andflow labels for each configuration file and application file, andcreates the flow diagram by generating an icon for the destinations,with arrows between each destination indicating the flow. The flowlabels are associated with the corresponding arrow to show a result thatwill cause the process to move to a particular destination. Any type oficon or symbol may be used, and the icons shown herein are only ones ofmany possible examples that could be used. The flow diagrams may berendered and displayed on a screen in any of many methods known to thoseof skill in the art.

The screenshot 400 is shown with the project name “My Project.” As maybe seen with reference to FIG. 2, the project “My Project” not onlyincludes the “login” process, but also includes the various otherprocesses such as “billing”, “businesspartner”, etc. Embodiments of thepresent invention can be used to simultaneously generate a plurality offlow diagrams for a plurality of processes within a project, or can beused to generate one or more flow diagrams for a single process. If aproject includes a plurality of processes and it is desired to generatethe flow diagrams for all of the processes, embodiments of the presentinvention will do so by receiving the location of the configurationfiles and application files, and extracting the flow information foreach process. The extracted flow information is then associated with thecorresponding process, so that the separate flow diagrams may be formed.If the flow information is not associated with a particular process,when a user wants to display the flow diagram for a process, any flowsrelated to it may be dynamically formed.

FIGS. 5 and 6 illustrate the components of a basic computer and networkarchitecture in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention.Embodiments of the present invention may not need all of the elementsdescribed herein. FIG. 5 depicts user computing device 500, which may bea personal computer, workstation, handheld personal digital assistant(“PDA”), or any other type of microprocessor-based device. Usercomputing device 400 may include one or more of processor 510, inputdevice 520, output device 530, storage 540, and communication device560.

Input device 520 may include a keyboard, mouse, pen-operated touchscreen or monitor, voice-recognition device, or any other device thatprovides input. Output device 530 may include a monitor, printer, diskdrive, speakers, or any other device that provides output.

Storage 540 may include volatile and nonvolatile data storage, includingone or more electrical, magnetic or optical memories such as a RAM,cache, hard drive, CD-ROM drive, tape drive or removable storage disk.Communication device 560 may include a modem, network interface card, orany other device capable of transmitting and receiving signals over anetwork. The components of user computing device 500 may be connectedvia an electrical bus or wirelessly.

Software 550, which may be stored in storage 540 and executed byprocessor 510, may include, for example, the client side of aclient/server application that embodies the functionality of the presentinvention (e.g., automatically generating the flow diagrams). Thussoftware for executing the above-described functionality may be placedin storage 540 and executed by processor 510 to automatically generatethe flow diagrams.

FIG. 6 illustrates a network architecture that could be used inaccordance with an embodiment of the present invention. According to oneparticular embodiment, when user 600 invokes a client/server applicationhosted by Enterprise System 605, client software 650 of user computingdevice 600 communicates with server software 630 (e.g., the server sideof the client/server application) of server 620 via network link 615 a,network 610, and network link 615 b. The server software 630 may performthe functionality of the present invention, where a user connects to thebackend system via network 610, for example. In this embodiment, theflow diagrams could be generated in Server 620, and displayed at UDC500.

Network links 615 may include telephone lines, DSL, cable networks, T1or T3 lines, wireless network connections, or any other arrangement thatimplements the transmission and reception of network signals. Network610 may include any type of interconnected communication system, whichmay implement any communications protocol, which may be secured by anysecurity protocol.

Server 620 includes a processor and memory for executing programinstructions as well as a network interface, and may include acollection of servers. In one particular embodiment, server 620 mayinclude a combination of enterprise servers such as an applicationserver and a database server. Database 640 may represent a relational orobject database, and may be accessed via a database server.

User computing device 500 and server 620 may implement any operatingsystem, such as Windows or UNIX. Client software 650 and server software630 may be written in any programming language, such as ABAP, C, C++,Java or Visual Basic.

In other embodiments, application software embodying the functionalityof the present invention may be deployed on a standalone machine orthrough a Web browser as a Web-based application or Web service, forexample.

FIG. 7 depicts a process in accordance with an embodiment of the presentinvention. In step 700, a plurality of processes are displayed in afirst portion of a screen. Each of the processes may be selectable bythe user. Any method of selection may be useable, such as placing acursor over the processes and clicking a doubleclicking. The processesmay be displayed in a list form, or in another desired form. Theprocesses may have sub-elements also displayed, as further describedbelow.

In step 710, a flow diagram of a process flow of a selected one of theprocesses is displayed in a second portion of the screen. The user mayselect any of the processes from the first portion of the screen, andthe corresponding flow diagram will be displayed in the second portionof the screen.

In step 720, the user may select portions of the process flow to berevised. As further explained below, various methods may be used toselect the portions to be revised.

In step 730, the selected portions of the process flow are revised inthe second portion of the screen. Further details of the revision of theselected portions are described below.

FIG. 8 illustrates a screenshot 800 in accordance with the presentinvention. The screenshot 800 includes an area 810 graphicallydisplaying a process flow generated from configuration files andapplication files as explained above, and an area 820 displaying aplurality of processes used to generate such process flows. In thisexample, the area 820 displayed includes the following processes:billing, businesspartner, contract, hom, jscript, login, marketing,negotiatedcontract, oci, order, quotation, relogin and test. Any numberof such processes may be displayed, and additional processes may beincluded in portions of area 820 that can be viewed by user manipulationof screenshot 800.

Some of the processes may have associated application files orconfiguration files that define the process and may be displayed as asubset of the process. For example, the login process in area 820includes a series of application files shown as associated with thelogin process. In the example in screenshot 800, the login processdisplayed in area 820 has a plurality of associated application filesdisplayed as nested within the login process, including applicationfiles empty.jsp, error_ume.jsp, forward_start.jsp, login.jsp,pwchange.jsp, pwchange_confirm.jsp, selectcatalog.jsp, selectoldto.jspand shoplist.jsp. Any number of such application files or configurationfiles may be displayed in association with a process. In the example ofscreenshot 800, configuration files are not shown, but would be shown inanother area of the process.

Details of the “login” process are displayed in area 810. In the area810 in screenshot 800, the login process is shown in a magnified view sothat not all elements of the flow process are viewable withoutmanipulation, but this is only one of many possible views. For example,by de-magnifying the view, all elements of the process may be viewable,or further magnification could be applied as desired. The flow diagramin area 810 illustrates configuration files, application files, and theflow of the process between them. In the flow diagram, spanner wrenchicons are used to represent configuration files and document icons areused to represent application files as described above, although anytype of icon may be used.

The login process, or any of the other processes, may be selected fordisplay in area 810 by the user. For example, a user may be able toselect one of the processes in area 820 for display in area 810 by amethod such as placing a cursor on the desired process in area 820 andselecting the process by clicking or doubleclicking, although anyselection method could be used.

The present invention allows the user to revise the flow diagram. Forexample, the user can create a new process from a subset of theconfiguration files and/or application files associated with a process.In particular, the present invention allows the user to selectconfiguration files and/or application files, such as the configurationfiles and application files 830, to define a new process. The user mayselect the desired files by any method, such a placing a cursor on thedesired files and clicking or doubleclicking. The user may select filesfor a newly defined process by use of a header, such as the “wizards”header 840 of FIG. 8, with the “create business process” subheader.Other ways of selecting the application files and/or configuration filesto be used in a newly defined process could also be used with thepresent invention.

In the present example, before or after the user selects the “wizards”header and the “create business process” subheader, the user may selecta plurality of configuration files and/or application files from thosedisplayed in area 810 for inclusion in a user defined process byselecting the corresponding flow destinations. In the present example,the user has selected three files 830 for inclusion in a new userdefined process. The three files selected in this example are theconfiguration file /b2b/selectcatalog.do, the application file/b2b/login/selectcatalog.jsp and the configuration file/b2b/readcatalog.do, which are shown as being selected in FIG. 8 asbeing included within rectangles. When the user selects the “Createbusiness process” subheader, embodiments of the system and method of thepresent invention will initiate creation of a new user defined process,as further described below.

FIG. 9 illustrates a screenshot according to embodiments of the presentinvention. When the user selects the “Create business process”subheader, the present invention may ask the user for information aboutthe new process. For example, the present invention may cause display ofan item, such as the “Business Process” box 910 requesting informationfrom the user. The requested information may include a name for theprocess, a description for the process and a start point for theprocess. After selection of the files for inclusion in the user definedprocess as shown in FIG. 8, the present invention may preload theselected files and display them for selection by the user, by means suchas a drop down menu as shown in FIG. 9. In the present example, thethree files that were selected in FIG. 8, the configuration file/b2b/selectcatalog.do, the application file /b2b/login/selectcatalog.jspand the configuration file /b2b/readcatalog.do, may be preloaded forselection by the user in the drop down menu of box 910.

After the user has selected the files for inclusion in the process, theuser may indicate to the system to proceed with the user definedprocess. This indication may occur in various ways, such as selection ofthe “Ok” button in the box 910 of FIG. 9. Upon receipt of the userindication to create the new process, the system will automaticallycreate the user defined process. The flow diagram 810 of FIG. 8 will beautomatically updated by the system to replace the flow destinationsselected by the user for inclusion in the user defined process, as wellas the connection between the flow destinations and any associatedlabels, with a new icon representing the user defined process.

FIG. 10 illustrates a screenshot 1000 in accordance with embodiments ofthe present invention. Screenshot 1000 illustrates the flow diagramincluding new user defined process 1020 generated in response to theuser indication to create the new process as described above inconjunction with FIGS. 8 and 9. The flow destinations for the threeapplication and configuration files 830 of FIG. 8 have been replaced bya single icon representing the user defined process in the second areaof the screen. If appropriate, this new flow diagram will include aconnection between the user defined process (in this case“displayCatalog”) and any flow destinations that should be connectedaccording to the application and configuration files. In this example,there is a connection from the flow destination /b2b/readsoldto.do tothe displayCatalog process, and the connection includes the label“success.”

Thus, the present invention allows a user to take a flow diagram thatmay be relatively complex, and to simplify the flow diagram by creatinga user defined process from a plurality of flow destinations, associatedconnections and associated labels. The system, upon receipt of userdirection to create the new process, will then automatically revise theflow diagram to replace the plurality of flow destinations, associatedconnections and associated labels with a new icon indicating a userdefined process. The icon representing the user defined process may bedifferent from the be different from the spanner wrench and file iconsused to represent the configuration files and application files, such asthe illustrated “truck” icon.

Upon creation of the user defined process, the portion 820 of thedisplay that had included a plurality of processes may be revised toshow an icon representing the newly defined process. For example, theportion 820 of the display is revised in this example to display thenewly defined process 1010 displayCatalog, as show in FIG. 10.

The invention disclosed in the above-described embodiments provides aneasy to use system and method that allows a user to combine.

Several embodiments of the invention are specifically illustrated and/ordescribed herein. However, it will be appreciated that modifications andvariations of the invention are covered by the above teachings andwithin the purview of the appended claims without departing from thespirit and intended scope of the invention.

1. A computer-implemented method comprising: displaying a plurality ofbusiness processes in a first portion of a display, each process to bedefined by configuration files and application files; simultaneouslydisplaying a flow diagram of a selected process of the plurality ofprocesses in a second portion of the display, the flow diagram toinclude icons indicating a plurality of flow destinations representingthe configuration files and application files of the selected processand flow direction indicators indicating a direction of flow for theselected process, wherein the displaying of the flow diagram of theselected process comprises extracting flow information from at least oneof the configuration files and application files, identifying a firstfile based upon the extracted flow information, and reviewing theidentified first file to determine a first of the flow destinations anda corresponding second file of the configuration and application files;receiving from a user a selection of a subset of the configuration filesand/or application files, the subset including a plurality ofconfiguration files and/or application files; for each subset file,automatically extracting flow destination and flow labels to otherconfiguration and/or application files included in the subset and toother configuration and/or application files outside the subset;receiving from the user a start point selection, the start point beingone of the flow destinations included in the subset; creating a newbusiness process from the subset and the start point selection; and, inresponse to creation of the new business process, automatically revisingthe flow diagram in the second portion of the display by replacing flowdestination icons corresponding to the subset and associated flowdirection indicators with a single new icon that represents all subsetfiles, wherein the revised flow diagram includes said extracted flowdestination and flow labels connecting the new icon to said otherconfiguration and/or application files outside the subset.
 2. The methodof claim 1, further comprising displaying sub-elements in associationwith at least one of the processes in the first portion of the display.3. The method of claim 2, wherein the sub-elements comprise a list ofconfiguration files and/or application files defining the associatedprocess.
 4. The method of claim 3, wherein the selection of the subsetincludes selecting configuration files and/or application files from thelist on the first portion of the display.
 5. The method of claim 1,wherein the selection of the subset includes selecting flow destinationicons on the second portion of the display.
 6. The method of claim 1,further comprising, upon receiving the selection of the subset,requesting from the user descriptive information of the new process. 7.The method of claim 1, further comprising displaying an icon indicativeof the new process in the first portion of the display.
 8. The method ofclaim 1, further comprising reviewing the first file to determine afirst flow label corresponding to the first flow destination.
 9. Themethod of claim 1, wherein the displaying of the flow diagram of theselected process comprises reviewing the second file to determine asecond flow destination and a corresponding third file of theconfiguration and application files.
 10. The method of claim 1, whereinthe reviewing of the first file includes tokenizing information in thefirst file and extracting the first flow destination and the identity ofthe second file from the tokenized information.
 11. The method of claim10, wherein the tokenizing includes breaking a markup-language tag intoa plurality of parts, and the extracting includes constructing theidentity of the second file from a subset of the plurality of parts ofthe markup-language tag.
 12. The method of claim 10, wherein thetokenizing includes processing the markup-language tag using a stringoperation library of a programming language.
 13. The method of claim 1,wherein the configuration files and application files are stored in adatabase, the database associating the configuration files andapplication files with at least one of the plurality of processes. 14.An apparatus comprising: a display; a processor; and a memory coupled tothe processor, the memory storing instructions adapted to be executed bythe processor to: display a plurality of business processes in a firstportion of a display, each process to be defined by configuration filesand application files; simultaneously display a flow diagram of aselected process of the plurality of processes in a second portion ofthe display, the flow diagram to include icons indicating a plurality offlow destinations representing the configuration files and applicationfiles of the selected process and flow direction indicators indicating adirection of process flow for the selected process, wherein thedisplaying of the flow diagram of the selected process comprisesextracting flow information from at least one of the configuration filesand application files, identifying a first file based upon the extractedflow information, and reviewing the identified first file to determine afirst of the flow destinations and a corresponding second file of theconfiguration and application files; receive from a user a selection ofa subset of the configuration files and/or application files, the subsetincluding a plurality of configuration files and/or application files;for each subset file, automatically extract flow destination and flowlabels to other configuration and/or application files included in thesubset and to other configuration and/or application files outside thesubset; receive from the user a start point selection, the start pointbeing one of the flow destinations included in the subset; create a newbusiness process from the subset and the start point selection; and, inresponse to creation of the new business process, automatically revisethe flow diagram in the second portion of the display by replacing flowdestination icons corresponding to the subset and associated flowdirection indicators with a single new icon that represents all subsetfiles, wherein the revised flow diagram includes said extracted flowdestination and flow labels connecting the new icon to said otherconfiguration and/or application files outside the subset.
 15. Theapparatus of claim 14, wherein the instructions to display the pluralityof processes in the first portion of the display comprise instructionsto display sub-elements in association with at least one of theprocesses.
 16. The apparatus of claim 15, wherein the sub-elementscomprise a list of configuration files and/or application files definingthe associated process.
 17. The apparatus of claim 16, wherein theselection of the subset includes selecting configuration files and/orapplication files from the list on the first portion of the display. 18.The apparatus of claim 14, wherein the selection of the subset includesselecting flow destination icons on the second portion of the display.19. The apparatus of claim 14, further comprising instructions adaptedto be executed by the processor to request from the user descriptiveinformation of the new process after receiving the selection of thesubset.
 20. The apparatus of claim 14, further comprising instructionsadapted to be executed by the processor to display an icon indicative ofthe new process in the first portion of the display.
 21. The apparatusof claim 14, wherein the configuration files and application files arestored in a database, the database associating the configuration filesand application files with at least one of the plurality of processes.